


we know, we belong to you (or: dolls / puppets)

by eldritchbee



Series: Goretober 2020 [7]
Category: Hello Charlotte (Video Games)
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Goretober, Goretober 2020, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Murder, Partial Mind Control, Possession, Sharing a Body, Suicide, body control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchbee/pseuds/eldritchbee
Summary: Charles watches as the world rights itself, watches the puppet pair return to the dead end room, watches the white haired Freya peek out and watch them from behind her door. Seth drops his golden threads and hooks them up to Felix, this time without any argument. They both know there’s only a dead end ahead. She’s alone now, he thinks, Seth made Felix the main character on her request, if she dies this time it’s really over.“She still has the scissors, though,” Seth whispers.---Let's play hot potato with names!Major spoilers for Episode 3. Not really canon compliant but not exactly a complete rewrite either.For Goretober 2020 (prompt #12 - dolls / puppets)
Relationships: Charles Eyler & Scarlett Eyler, Seth & Charlotte Wiltshire, Umbrella Man & Charlotte Wiltshire
Series: Goretober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950091
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	we know, we belong to you (or: dolls / puppets)

**Author's Note:**

> Important (?) notes: Charles & The Imposter (Father) are both referenced as "Umbrella Man". Whenever Seth is talking to "Charles" he's talking to Charles as Umbrella Man. "The One from the True Realm" is you! the one playing the game! (Seth/Lilith!) Charlotte = Scarlett!Charlotte (EP1&2) unless otherwise stated. Alt: read this however you want. 
> 
> I play super loose with canon so this isn't technically compliant considering I completely rewrote scenes to fit in with my headcanons. Still, I imagine it following parallel to the actual game.

_we know, we know, we belong to you  
we know you threw your arms around us  
in the hopes we wouldn’t change  
but we had to change some  
you know, to belong to you _

* * *

He eats my name and becomes _Seth_ in the truest sense.

(Father. Guardian. Observer. _Umbrella Man_.)

***

Charles feels it when she makes her wish.

Of course he does. As worthless as he sees himself in this space he is _God_ and every Charlotte and every Scarlett are all _him_. He felt V19 when she went on her rampage, heard her wish for the lens of this world ( _this ugly theatre_ ) to crack and shatter into the eyes of everyone watching. He’s felt _each_ wish, from Eden Charlotte’s sanctuary to the Pure White One who gave the House its Voice. 

But, like Q84, this one was _different_ , this one was _special_. 

This one was _Scarlett_.

“What did you do to her?” Charles asks, horrified as he rewinds and watches the scene over and over. The way Scarlett’s hands close around V19’s throat. The horrified look on her face as she bore down. The imposter Umbrella Man leans against the doorframe to Charles’s room.

“I fulfilled V19’s wish. Her death unveiled the mask of this world.”

(He never believed he’d be moved by Scarlett crying, Scarlett shaking, Scarlett terrified because something slipped into her body and controlled her like a puppet. His whole life he’d suffered under her, his whole life up until his death. He thinks he should be happy, or at least vindicated with her desperation and her willingness to die and _not being allowed to get what she wanted_. 

He’s not.)

“You _broke_ her.”

The imposter shrugs. “You break your dolls all the time. They’re all coded to self destruct - your Vincents do little more than kill themselves, and all the Charlottes die and are reborn over and over until they end their stories. Q84 killed _her_ Scarlett and you’re sitting here trying to bring _her_ back to life. What does _this_ one matter?”

Charles shakes, rubbing hard at the tears that form in his eyes. _Why is he crying for Scarlett?_

“Seth,” he says quietly, and the imposter looks over at him curiously. Charles thinks about the One from the True Realm who Scarlett accepted better than any of the other self-aware Charlottes. “I’m taking that from you.”

“You’ve already taken my body. Will you add your father’s name to your own growing list? _Vincent, C, Charles, Charlotte, Scarle -_ ”

“ _I’m_ not keeping it.”

“Oh?”

***

_You have one job._

_Protect her. Lead her right._

Seth is born of light and love, a secret wish that Charles buried deep in his heart years ago when his own Scarlett twisted in his self-loathing. Seth is all golden, all goodness, all desire for someone, anyone, to take his hand when he was a child when Father left and Mother grew ill. By all means, Charles is certain he still fears Scarlett and her wrath - may even hate her, a creature borne from all his fears and insecurities and self loathing. Still, he picks up their father’s vessel and marks this Charlotte with a yellow bow, to distinguish her from the others. When she’s ten he marks her with more, golden strings attached to her, a body for Seth to carry around and keep safe.

“Nothing like me, right?” the Imposter asks Charles, leaning up against the door to his room (the one Charles never entered, the one he wished would vanish from sight). 

_You have one job._

_Love her. Keep her alive._

_Make her good._

So Seth strings up his golden wires and links down with his girl. And she trusts him, and she listens to him. _No violence, do your homework, be good, be kind._ Bennett can teach her all about how to make a pipe bomb, Huxley can sit her in front of a corpse and point out places to cut, but she is _good_ and she is _kind_ and she is -

“Nothing like Scarlett was. I wonder…”

Seth is golden and Seth is light, Seth is curious as well. Someone who desired to learn as much as Charlotte had. “What are you talking about?” he asks this Umbrella Man.

It’s Charles who answers, with his mouth and his voice and his vessel: “nevermind. Keep it up.”

***

_You have one job._ And it doesn’t extend to any other being in the House. So he refuses to cut Charlotte’s strings and hook Felix up instead. _He is not my charge_.

He’ll regret that.

 _He regrets that_ , pulling hard on the golden string that holds Charlotte’s hand and keeps her from digging the scissors straight into her carotid. When Felix is dead, and this creature is chasing her, chasing them, and if it catches her _it’s over, it’s over for her_ because that thing won’t just kill her _it will draw it out, it will torture her_ a cat playing with mice. And she’s begging and begging him to let her do it, _Seth, I don’t want her to catch me, please, you can rewind if I do this, please don’t let her catch me_ and (he’s done it before, over and over, several times already throughout this adventure, but never before did he _willingly_ allow her to die like this, to kill herself, it goes against the very reason he was created, it goes against the _Book of Truth_ , it goes against the _rules_ , it goes against everything inside of him

but) she’s right. And so, as the timer counts down, while the white haired Freya hunts, he snips the thread and allows her hand to swing inward. She’s a smart girl, Doctor Huxley taught her and Bennett every little thing about the human body. Long ago, before Seth, he’d stood them in front of the corpse they’d gathered together and picked it apart. She’s a smart girl

she’s good with a scalpel

she knows exactly where to cut to make it _instant_ -

the white haired Freya rounds the corner the moment her soul escapes back to Seth’s arms

and he resets.

_You have one job._

_Protect her._

***

“You took my body _and_ my name.”

“You have to admit, Seth and I are far better fathers than you ever could be.”

“So you’re a father now?”

He marks this Charlotte with a yellow ribbon and golden thread and someone named Seth who wants her to live.

“What if I want my name back?”

***

“You failed,” the Umbrella Man says, as they sit up on floor eleven and watch the world reset.

“I know. Give me another chance.”

Charles watches as the world rights itself, watches the puppet pair return to the dead end room, watches the white haired Freya peek out and watch them from behind her door. Seth drops his golden threads and hooks them up to Felix, this time without any argument. They both know there’s only a dead end ahead. _She’s alone now_ , he thinks, _Seth made Felix the main character on her request, if she dies this time it’s really over_.

“She still has the scissors, though,” Seth whispers.

“And we need a body to get through to the next area,” Charles says. “She’s smart enough to know that,” but, the real question was: “but will she do it, Seth?”

“I didn’t trust her last time,” Seth says. “I’m choosing to trust her now.”

Charles thinks about Q84, to whom he whispered the secret of this world and allowed her free reign. He thinks he understands a bit, but, she was no Q84 or V19 or Trash World Charlotte or -

“Puppeteers aren’t supposed to be led by puppets, you know.”

(Was that him or the imposter?)

Charles slips away into the closest Vincent and slips on a mask. Charles gets up close and whispers in this Charlotte’s ear. 

_If I die, Seth would get in a lot of trouble. And Felix…_

would die shortly after.

She’s nothing like Scarlett, cheerful even though death loomed so close, and when notified only expressed concern for others. _Wrong, you’re all wrong_ , where was the Scarlett who hurt him? where was the one who allowed a parasite into her mind to reach her rival? This girl didn't want to hurt anyone, not even someone trying to rip her to pieces. ( _But then, he remembers her face after V19 and... ah_ -) “Scarlett,” he whispers to her, hands tightening on her shoulders. Her eyes widen at the name, she freezes. _Good_. “ _Scarlett,_ what about your wish? Seth will lose his place in this world. Felix will die... _again_ -”

“Wha -” she chokes. 

“Pull out the scissors, Scarlett. Pull them out, you’ll need them.”

“I don’t want -”

“What if I did it for you this time?”

And so he slips from Vincent to her and the body fits like a Charlotte always did. Everything Scarlett was broken down and put through a blender and stuffed into this suit. Seth’s control was on the outside, simple strings on her limbs, a symbiosis that hurt neither of them

but this one was internal, pushing her and her soul aside and claiming the body as his own. Their thoughts meshed together (how long has it been since he and Scarlett shared a body? shared thoughts? for once, he was the more malevolent being inside of them) and she was starting to shake. She was starting to _remember_. She was starting to crack. She wouldn’t last very long like this, best to work fast.

***

_You have one job._

_Protect her_.

Seth looks at Charles, concerned, when he and Felix come back to Charlotte with her blood stained dress and rubbed-red eyes. Charles looks away. _She’s forgotten again_ , the moment he left he took those memories away with him. 

“I have to protect her too.”

She’s kinder than Scarlett ever could be, gentler. And so much more _naïve_. 

_You have one job._

_Love her. Keep her alive._

_Make her good._

“You did well, Seth. We made it through.”

***

The imposter gathers her sobbing soul up in his arms. “You _broke_ her,” he whispers to Charles. “You broke her and allowed her to suffer _long_ past her story ended.” Charles shakes, wishing Q84 was around to laugh in his face, flick snot at him, mock him because he can’t stand _this_.

“I can save her, Charles. I can save her _Seth_.

Come to my room when you’re ready.”

***

All he asks for is my name, my name for her soul. He eats my name and becomes _Seth_ once more, and Charles can no longer use his visage as a vessel.

(Father. Guardian. Observer. _Umbrella Man_.)

_You have one job_. 

How easy.

I hook my golden threads to another Charlotte, become her puppet (the Nameless, Powerless Puppeteer).

Charles and I, we cling to Q84 as she forces Charles to turn the knob to his father’s bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and starting lyrics are "The Singer Addresses His Audience" by The Decemberists.


End file.
